Network of networks?

When looking into the sustainable development from the city perspective -it is evident that every day resources are wasted in reinventing the wheel again. When serious changes would be needed, we rather focus in starting from zero then on looking outside and benefiting on what has already been done elsewhere. Internal process is needed, but why not speed it up a bit?

It is amazing, that the flow of information inside the organizations is still, in many cases, on a random level. More faster would be to consider each local authority as a network or a spider web that would have the same aim/interest in mind. This way, the message might reach the right nodes faster. For this to succeed, it would need a change in the way we consider the role of the local authorities. And in this respect, we would need a network of networks to speed up the exchange of good practices in the Baltic Sea Region.

Is a network of networks even possible to be created? Would we finally be ready to share experiences, both good and bad, for the benefit of the common sustainable future of our region?

Come and check out, how we succeed with creating a node for the networks, namely Solutions local, together -conference! 

From informing to involvement

During the resent years the focus from environmental awareness raising has changed more towards involvement of stakeholders. This means that the skills demanded from the employees of the local authorities are changing. Employees should be able to handle challenging communication, understand the dynamics of involvement and different methods of involvement.

A lot of cities have tested a number of stakeholder involvement methods and some have proven to be good practices in their local surroundings. A good number of these cases, can be found from a Good Practice Database in the Baltic Sea Region . The diversity of topics approached through active involvement is very wide. Nearly everyone of the practices evidence a more effective implementation of the topic developed through an involvement process. This is very important.

Solutions local, together - conference offers you a change to be involved as much as you would like to. Involvement requires an active approach from both sides. At the moment, we are trying to develop different ways for involvement. It will be challenging as the conference has tree languages to work with. If you have good ideas - let us know them.

Involve yourself

Lucas has decided that he will need to be well equipped to participate in the citizen forum on wind energy and sits by his computer. He goes through the search engines and find out that wind energy has been promoted quite widely, but it still has not spread all around the Baltic Sea Region. He wonders why it is so and decides to understand what it needs to get a decisions like this through.

What is the true aim with the citizen forum, is it to inform, influence or decide? Or all of this? Lucas is not sure anymore what kind of possibilities he has in order to enable a more sustainable change to take place. He would like to encourage his friends and relatives to join in, but is afraid that he would mislead them. He calls to the organizers of the forum and they tell him that the forum offers a possibility to discuss and share opinions. Lucas doubts that.

Lucas is convinced that he would have a lot to say and familiarizes himself with information on citizen forums. Luckily he found many good cases about it and feels that with the information gathered he is ready to take part and heads to the citizens forum on wind energy.